Listening to Vanessa Feltz on BBC Radio London about this bizarre idea to encourage the 'elderly' to move out of their family homes – and let them to families with young children.
It's all based on a pilot scheme in Redbridge called Free Space – and it seems to be working there but at first glance it seems a dotty idea!
They say there are lots of 'elderly' who feel trapped in their homes! But who can they possibly be? It sounds v. patronising to us to suggest that there are people out there who daren't move house even though they'd like to.
We think, in contrast, most 'elderly' who own their own homes are perfectly competent and capable of deciding when or whether to downsize.
Apparently there are 25 million empty bedrooms in this country – but we feel pretty sure that most of them belong to people who use them regularly. Most of us downsize when we need to, and if we do still have spare bedrooms, they are usually regularly filled by adult kids who can't afford to move out, or grandchildren that we're looking after while their parents can work.
So it sounds like a patronising scheme to us – one which makes it seem that just because we're 'elderly' we don't know how to manage our own affairs.
January 17th, 2012 at 11:04 am
I have to agree with you that there seems to be a strong whiff of paternalism about this scheme. I do not doubt that in some well managed cases it can work (and I think it is right to be considering all of the options) but it seems to me there is a potential conflict of interest between the local authority wanting to house families as cheaply as possible and collecting the highest possible rent for the householder. Who would be responsible for maintaining the property and to what standard? And I am not sure how I would feel about having my family home let out to an unknown family. Downsizing is about more than bare economics.